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MARKING the NAKBA from Betrayals and Warnings to Future Visions

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MARKING the NAKBA from Betrayals and Warnings to Future Visions MARKING THE NAKBA FROM BETRAYALS AND WARNINGS TO FUTURE VISIONS A selection of Al-Shabaka analysis that reviews the past 100 years, dissects the present, and looks ahead to a better future. May 2018 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS 2 Introduction by Nadia Hijab 3 CHAPTER ONE: IN THE BEGINNING WAS 47 How Sovereign a State? BETRAYAL by Camille Mansour 4 Don’t Historicize the Balfour Declaration: The 52 Under Siege: Remembering Leningrad, Past is Still the Palestinians’ Present Surviving Gaza by Yara Hawari by Ayah Abubasheer and Esther Rappaport 8 After Balfour: 100 Years of History and the 58 Which Jerusalem: Israel’s Little-Known Master Roads Not Taken Plans by Zena Agha, Jamil Hilal, Rashid Khalidi, Najwa by Nur Arafeh Al-Qattan, Mouin Rabbani, and Jaber Suleiman 15 Tracking the Trends of the Palestinian Cause 67 CHAPTER FOUR: FUTURE VISIONS AND Since 1967 STRATEGIES by Nadia Hijab and Mouin Rabbani 69 Reclaiming Self-Determination by Ali Abunimah 19 CHAPTER TWO: THE REFUGEES’ LONG PATH TO 2018 74 Defeating Dependency, Creating a Resistance Economy 20 Decades of Displacing Palestinians: How by Alaa Tartir, Sam Bahour, Samer Abdelnour Israel Does It by Munir Nuseibah 79 BDS: A Global Movement for Freedom and Justice 25 Unwelcome Guests: Palestinian Refugees in by Omar Barghouti Lebanon by Dalal Yassine 84 To Achieve One State, Palestinians Must Also Work for Two 32 From Our Facebook Balconies, the Dark Heart by Nadia Hijab of Yarmuk by Ahmad Diab 89 ADDITIONAL RECOMMENDED READING 37 CHAPTER THREE: WARNING SIGNS ALONG THE ROAD Please note that URLs have been provided as endnotes rather than as hyperlinks in the pieces reproduced in this booklet to 39 The Myth of American Pressure make it suitable for printing. For the original publications with by Osamah Khalil hyperlinks included, please go to al-shabaka.org. INTRODUCTION Some years ago, I saw Hanan Ashrawi after a long time Zionism in the early days but the one that prevailed apart. During the course of our conversation I said how was the settler colonial model that has had as its goal important it was that she was still living in Palestine. By the displacement of the majority of the indigenous contrast, I had lived in four different countries by that people, as is clear from a plethora of Zionist statements time (now seven). Hanan replied: “I never left. I knew and texts. This goal was accomplished in the 78% of that once you move, you keep on moving.” mandate Palestine that became Israel in 1948 and is being carried out today in the OPT. In the 70 years since the Nakba (Catastrophe), millions of Palestinians have been forced to move, and to To mark the Nakba, Al-Shabaka has drawn together a keep on moving not once but many times. Most were selection of pieces from its archives that offer reflections dispossessed and displaced in the harshest conditions on the past and present but also look ahead with of war, terror, and fear, with little more than the clothes suggestions for ways forward. As a think tank founded they wore, losing family members on the way or leaving to expand the space for policy analysis by Palestinians them behind. in order to ensure that these perspectives are taken into account by the policy community, civil society, and While the Israeli-Arab war of 1948 marks the year of the media, Al-Shabaka has since 2010 sought to bring the Palestinian Nakba, this was not a one-time event. thinking and well-grounded analysis to the table. The forcible dispossession of Palestinians began in 1947 and reached its peak with the creation of Israel on May This booklet is divided into four sections, each of 15, 1948, continuing thereafter as Israel gradually sealed which includes a short introduction and selected pieces. off the border and blocked the refugees’ return despite A list of additional reading is provided on p. 88. The its pledge to the United Nations. The Nakba continued first section, “In the Beginning Was Betrayal,” reviews through three major Arab-Israeli wars in 1956, 1967, and the roots of the conflict and includes discussion 1973 and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. on alternative trajectories history might have taken. This is followed in “The Path to the present Day” by The Nakba has also continued through Israel’s frequent analysis of the continuing impact on Palestinian lives, incursions into and assaults on Gaza, the West Bank, particularly since 1967. In “Warning Signs Along the and Lebanon, as well as its interference in civil wars Road,” Al-Shabaka analysts discuss the mistakes made in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. One could add the US in the Palestinian movement for self-determination. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 – a war that violated the UN final section, “Future Visions and Strategies,” examines Charter – given the strong Israeli support of that project, the goals of the Palestinian struggle and ways to move as well as other great power geopolitical schemes in the ahead. Middle East. These wars and crises resulted in great destruction in Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria, and There is much more analysis on Al-Shabaka’s website the dispossession of millions of Arabs. The Palestinian that can inform the present time and help build for the condition has been described as the «most protracted future, and readers are encouraged to browse through and largest» refugee problem in the world. the sections on politics, economic issues, refugees, and civil society. Beyond these major events, the Nakba continues every day through the relentless dispossession of Palestinians, If the cycle of war and violence is to be broken, it is home by home and village by village on both sides of important that our work to fulfill the inalienable rights the Green Line – within Israel as well as within the of the Palestinian people does not create new wrongs. Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). Witness the plans Implementing justice without prejudice to the rights of for villages such as Al-Walaja and others surrounded by others and upholding one’s identity without diminishing Israel’s Separation Wall in the OPT or the uprooting, or destroying that of others willing to live in peace as recently as 2018, of the Bedouin in Umm Al-Hiran and justice are not signs of weakness but of strength. within present-day Israel. Despite repeated attempts to crush the Palestinian people over the past century, it is remarkable how many The brutal, decades-long fallout of the Nakba has its still hold this view. roots in the original Zionist project to build a Jewish state in Palestine shaped at the first Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897 and given an imperial imprimatur by Nadia Hijab Britain in 1917. There was more than one strand of President, Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network 2 CHAPTER ONE IN THE BEGINNING WAS BETRAYAL Britain’s betrayal of the Palestinian people through the Balfour Declaration in 1917 – and of the rest of the Arab national movement through the Sykes-Picot Agreement with France in 1916 – has been well studied. The 100th anniversary of the declaration in 2017 was marked by protests, literature, and cultural events, as well as official and popular Palestinian demands for an apology from Britain. The refusal of imperial powers to, at a minimum, apologize for the violation of the individual and national rights of their “subjects” and the rape of their homelands has contributed to a culture of impunity that has continued through the 20th century. That culture of impunity greatly contributed to Israel’s repeated violations of international law over the past 70 years despite international condemnation of its refusal to recognize the rights of Palestinian refugees since 1948, compounded by its occupation of Palestinian and other Arab lands in 1967, an occupation that marked its 50th anniversary in 2017. This section includes four pieces that reflect on how historical events have - or could have - shaped the present. Don’t Historicize the Balfour Declaration: The Past is Still the Palestinians’ Present Yara Hawari reflects on Britain’s imperial legacy and discusses the nature of an apology that would be meaningful today. After Balfour: 100 Years of History and the Roads Not Taken In this unique exercise Zena Agha, Jamil Hilal, Rashid Khalidi, Najwa Al-Qattan, Mouin Rabbani, and Jaber Suleiman each choose a different point of history from the past 100 years and reflect on whether Palestinians could have influenced the course of events in a different direction. They also draw lessons that should be applied in the Palestinian quest for self-determination, freedom, justice, and equality. Tracking the Trends of the Palestinian Cause Since 1967 Nadia Hijab and Mouin Rabbani take stock of the Palestinian cause from the eve of the 1967 war to 2017. They note that while the Palestinian people are today at one of the weakest points in their history, major obstacles remain in the face of Israel’s attempts to snuff out Palestinian self-determination. 3 DON’T HISTORICIZE THE BALFOUR DECLARATION: THE PAST IS STILL THE PALESTINIANS’ PRESENT BY YARA HAWARI JULY 2017 Overview Balfour centennial to begin to address Britain’s century of ill-treatment toward the Palestinians.3 The political turmoil in the United Kingdom following Prime Minister Theresa May’s re-election with a This commentary traces Britain’s treatment of Palestine reduced, precarious majority and the implications for and the Palestinians since the time of Balfour’s letter, the UK’s negotiations to leave the European Union have demonstrating a largely consistent pro-Israel stance overshadowed Britain’s other foreign policy concerns. over the decades.
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